Check in for the night with New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger.Eve has a fake ID, a .38, and a violent lover receding in the rearview mirror. He’ll never find her at the isolated motel, and its kindly manager is happy to ease her fears. But if Eve is the only guest, whom does she keep hearing on the other side of the wall? Eve won’t get a good night’s rest until she finds out.Lisa Unger’s The Sleep Tight Motel is part of Dark Corners, a collection of seven heart-stopping short stories by bestselling authors who give you so many new reasons to be afraid. Each story can be read in a single sitting. Or, if you have the nerve, you can listen all by yourself in the dark.

    And in the sleepy port town of Malacca, ghosts and superstitions abound.Li Lan, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. But fate intervenes when she receives an unusual proposal from the wealthy and powerful Lim family. They want her to become a ghost bride for the family's only son, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, traditional ghost marriages are used to placate restless spirits. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at a terrible price.After an ominous visit to the opulent Lim mansion, Li Lan finds herself haunted not only by her ghostly would-be suitor, but also by her desire for the Lims' handsome new heir, Tian Bai. Night after night, she is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, with its ghost cities, paper funeral offerings, vengeful spirits, and monstrous bureaucracy—including the mysterious Er Lang, a charming but unpredictable guardian spirit. Li Lan must uncover the Lim family's darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family—before she is trapped in this ghostly world forever.

    Unfortunately, their sex life has been suffering as of late, because Steve is worried about the odd noises that have been coming from Stacy's pubic region. She says that her vagina is haunted. She doesn't think it's that big of a deal. Steve, on the other hand, completely disagrees. When a living corpse climbs out of her during an awkward night of sex, Stacy learns that her vagina is actually a doorway to another world. She persuades Steve to climb inside of her to explore this strange new place. But once inside, Steve finds it difficult to return... especially once he meets an oddly attractive woman named Fig, who lives within the lonely haunted world between Stacy's legs.

    . . In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the local legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. With her passion for artifacts, Helen finds special materials to incorporate into the house--a beam from an old schoolroom, bricks from a mill, a mantel from a farmhouse--objects that draw her deeper into the story of Hattie and her descendants, three generations of Breckenridge women, each of whom died suspiciously. As the building project progresses, the house will become a place of menace and unfinished business: a new home, now haunted, that beckons its owners and their neighbors toward unimaginable danger.

    Twenty-three years old and gorgeous he had appeared like Romeo from the pool area and thrown supplies up to her balcony. But now Angus is gone – abandoned her, which is probably for the best. She couldn’t stand to watch him die too.Stranded four floors up and fenced in on all sides by the infected, food and water supplies are running as low as Natalie’s spirits. A lingering death from starvation seems inevitable.But then she sees Angus striding for the pool gate with a sawn-off shotgun in his hands. Can he make it past the infected to reach her? And what will it mean if he does?

    For Tom Dargin, courting an ailing spinster was only one duty in a long life of service to his sire. But after he meets the curious Miss Shaw, will Tom become the seducer or the seduced? Can a love fated to end in tragedy survive a looming grave? In Gaslight Hades, Nathaniel Gordon walks two worlds—that of the living and the dead. Barely human, he's earned the reputation of a Bonekeeper, the scourge of grave robbers. He believes his old life over, until one dreary burial he meets the woman he once loved and almost married. Lenore Kenward stands at her father’s grave, begging the protection of the mysterious guardian, not knowing he is her lost love. Resolved to keep his distance, Nathaniel is forced to abandon his plan and accompany Lenore on a journey into the mouth of Hell where sea meets sky, and the abominations that exist beyond its barrier wait to destroy them.

    Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest – the beautiful Carmilla. So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her mysterious, entrancing companion. But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day… Pre-dating Dracula by twenty-six years, Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in sexual tension and gothic romance.

    Let alone that her campus was near a shifter town. But that all changed when she got into a crash and was rescued by Zeke Blakesley—the wolf shifter who insisted they belonged together.Zeke knew Allegra was his fated mate the moment he caught her scent. Now that he has found the woman who was born to be his, he’ll never let her go.

    Her ruthless nature comes in handy as a problem solver until she lands a job where she's forced to work with an uncouth shifter. He's rude, cocky, totally unsuitable, not to mention part animal, but despite it all, she can't help craving his touch.Ryker is big, bad, and brash. When he's partnered with a curvy witch, he does everything in his power to fight her allure. And fails. But he's not too disappointed as he discovers wickedness has its uses, especially in the bedroom.Vampires, a wedding from hell, and a cackling boss named Rumpelstiltskin, will these two wicked beings complete their job and admit, despite their stubborn nature, that they belong together?

    But before Odd’s destiny is revealed, this exclusive eBook short story looks back — way back — to where it all began for Odd Thomas and Stormy Llewellyn, two souls who are destined to be together forever. Amid the dizzying rides, tantalizing games of chance, and fanciful attractions of a state fair, two teenage sweethearts on the cusp of life and love’s pleasures find their way to a shadowy carnival tent brimming with curiosities. There, from the bizarre and enthralling Gypsy Mummy, a mechanized merchant of dreams and prognosticator of tomorrows, the young couple learns what fate promises for them. But fate, for Odd Thomas and Stormy Llewellyn, is something altogether different: full of dark corners, sharp edges, and things no seer or soothsayer could ever anticipate. And for Odd Thomas, a gallant fry cook from a sleepy California desert town, the future beckons—to listen to unquiet spirits, pursue unsettling mysteries, and learn shocking truths . . . for a purpose far greater than himself.

    WTH, right? Also, a fork might've been thrown.I expected to spend the night commiserating with my best friend.That didn't happen. I found myself on a mission to save her.And somehow, I woke up in the back of a vehicle, across from a guy who could be described as literal sex on a stick.Then I found out a few things:He's seriously and overwhelmingly powerful.He's hot, like holy cannoli hot.He's the Big Bad that I've been sensing, but no one knew what kind of a Big Bad he was.Oh, and apparently, he's kidnapped me.

    Half human, half vampire, I have none of the perks and all of the weaknesses. Well, my father’s finally found a use for me. He’s sent me to Malachi Zion, the last vampire in his family. My role is to play resident blood bank and, should Malachi knock me up, my father gets access to a whole new bloodline to control. No one asks me what I want.But the longer I spend with Malachi, the more I realize that he’s not the monster I first thought, which makes it harder to resist the heat that flares between us. And then his two friends show up and complicate things exponentially. As long as we’re stuck in this house together, I’m a trap just waiting to be sprung. But if we break free, there’s nothing holding these vampires to me… In gaining the one thing I want more than anything—my freedom—I might just lose everything. CW: Dubious consent, blood play, breeding, abusive parent (father), cliffhanger

    She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945.... Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town.... Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing....John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead....The past isn't dead. It isn't even past...

    Left with his alcoholic and abusive father, Sol lived his life believing the story he'd been told, the story all the people of Varner Creek believed about what happened that summer. But in a plot of twists and family secrets that will leave the reader reaching for their jaw upon the floor, Sol is taken back to his childhood by the spirits he knew in life when he passes away so many years later . . . it is only then he learns what secrets The Ghosts of Varner Creek have been keeping so many years. "Very well written . . . this debut novel is a real page turner with some very interesting characters."-Jani Brooks, Romance Review Today This was a wonderfully woven story about an American family, their secrets, tragedies, love lost and redeemed. - Goodreads 5 Star Review from Robert Stadnik, author of Exodus Of The Phoenix, Phoenix Among The Stars, and Tales Of A Former Child Superhero. Terrific book! This story was haunting and chilled me to the core. I couldn't read fast enough to find out what happened to the characters. I was definitely hooked from the very beginning. I would recommend this book if you are looking for a great mystery. - Nook 5 Star Review Never anything but page-turning . . . I was hooked on this book right from the start. - Dr. Jon P. Bloch, Professor, Author, and Reviewer for The Kindle Book Review, blog website.

    A world seething with secrets and lies, both mortal and immortal.Complete and utter Darkness. I know we’re supposed to be inherently evil, but something inside me refuses to fully believe our legends. Something that calls out for more…calls out for her. But there are rules. Rules that control the balance of nature. And if broken, it could destroy everything I’ve ever known. It could destroy me.I am Nikolai Skotos, son of Stavros and Delia, and brother of Dorian, the heir of the Dark throne. I am one of the most powerful Dark forces to have ever walked this earth.And I once was lost.Now, I’m about to give it all up for the girl that found me. *This is a PREQUEL NOVELLA for the Dark Light Series, NOT Book 3, to be read AFTER reading Dark Light & The Dark Prince*